Futurama: Bender’s Big Score

Good news everyone! Bender's Big Score is out on DVD (and, naturally, torrent sites) and it's exactly what every Futurama fan has been waiting for. More Futurama! If you were expecting some sort of biblical, mind-blowing, unparalleled Futurama experience then this is most certainly not it – what it is is more of the same. So if you think "more Futurama" is not worth paying attention to then you should probably stop reading now. And you have my deepest sympathy.

I'll cover the technical aspects up first. The production values are at, or above, the excellent standard set by the TV series. The movie is in widescreen and features 5.1 Dolby Surround. The bad news is that there is no Australian release and one has not been announced as of yet.

As for the movie itself, I believe it could be best described as an episode of Futurama that's four time longer than usual. Which is fitting seeing as it's designed to be split up into four distinct episodes. Basically, if you love Futurama you're going to go gaga over this.

One of the biggest highlights for me was the opening scene where the crew makes thinly veiled references to the show's cancellation by the Fox Network. Professor Farnsworth explains that everyone was fired two years ago by the executives at the "Box Network". Seconds later he receives a phonecall telling him that those executives were themselves fired and have been ground up into a product called "Torgo's Executive Powder" (a product which is used throughout the movie). I think it is this eagerness to get straight to the issue of the cancellation, and subsequent mocking of Fox (common is Groening's shows), that really give you an idea of what kind of show Futurama is. There isn't much that is a taboo subject for the writers!

The opening title sequence gets a redoing as well. Characters are now introduced in between shots of the Planet Express Ship flying through New New York. The song was naturally extended for all this and I enjoyed hearing a longer version of it.

For fans of the show there are numerous references to the first four seasons but I won't go into any of them here and instead let you find them yourself. People who are not fans should find the movie as accessible as any episode but be warned that the plot is a rather involved time travel paradox-fest so people who aren't usually into sci-fi should probably find an early episode to start with.

Overall, what more can I say but that I loved every minute of Bender's Big Score and am extremely grateful that we're getting more Futurama after all this time.